A HISTORY of helping children and a heritage of ties to the ranching industry come together at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas. The outgrowth of one doctor's desire to help children with polio 80 years ago, the hospital treats children without charge. Its expenses are met by donations large and small, including property. One such property is the Rocker b Ranch west of San Angelo, which has produced income for the hospital since its bequest a quarter of a century ago.

Texas Scottish Rite Hospital
Has Ties To Ranching Industry

DALLAS — A large landscape painting of Centralia Draw hangs in the atrium of the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. The draw runs through the Rocker b, a 173,000-acre ranch that straddles the Irion and Reagan County line in West Texas, and is a reminder of the hospital's roots and in particular its strong ties to the ranching industry.

Senator William A. Blakley purchased the ranch, originally known as the Bar S, in 1954 from the Sawyer Cattle Company, which had operated it for more than 70 years. When Blakley took over, he changed the brand to the Rocker b. Before his death on January 5, 1976, Blakley deeded the entire ranch, as well as the San Cristobal Ranch in New Mexico, to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. It was decided that income from the ranch would go into an endowment to be used for the care of children served by the hospital.

Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children was founded in 1921 at a time when polio, a terribly debilitating and sometimes fatal disease, was rampant throughout the United States. Dr. W.B. Carrell, the first orthopedic surgeon in Dallas, was approached by a group of Dallas Masons about helping to treat local children stricken with the disease. Carrell generously agreed and began dedicating one day a week in his clinic to caring for children with polio. He treated child after child. The more families who heard about Carrell’s expertise, the more children came his way.

He soon needed more space, so again Carrell and the Masons came together and raised a little over $100,000 to build a new facility for the children. Construction on the new hospital began in 1921, and the 15-bed facility was completed the following year.

In keeping with Carrell’s original philosophy, when the new hospital was opened it was decided that families would not be charged for services rendered. The concept of providing medical care without charge has remained in place for 80 years.

"Sometimes people have the impression that while a charitable hospital provides needed medical care, that better care is available at a facility where they are charged for services. That’s definitely not the case here," insists development officer Keith Hitt, who has been with the hospital for 10 years.

The hospital doesn’t receive any state or government funding, but it is still obligated to meet the same accreditation requirements as other hospitals.

Texas Scottish Rite Hospital remained dedicated to treating children with polio and other crippling conditions from its inception until 1953, when Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine for polio. Later Dr. Albert Sabin developed an oral vaccine. It was this vaccine that was accepted and put into nationwide use.

When the polio epidemic was finally under control, the hospital made a decision to focus on pediatric orthopedic conditions. However, it never wavered from its original mission of providing quality care without charge to its patients. Focus on a new direction brought about a new vision — to offer treatments for a wide range of orthopedic disabilities caused by birth defects, diseases and injuries at no cost to the family.

Brandon Carrell, M.D., who in 1944 took over chief of staff responsibilities from his father, led the hospital down this new path and in time the hospital gained nationwide and worldwide recognition. The hospital has had only three chiefs of staff in its 80-year history. After Brandon Carrell’s retirement, Dr. Tony Herring was appointed Chief of Staff. He holds this position today.

The generous gift of the Rocker b Ranch also made possible the construction of a new hospital structure in the 1970s, named in honor of the Blakleys. In 1977, a new hospital on six levels and covering 400,000 square feet was completed. Today, the hospital campus encompasses 14 acres.

Senator Blakley had a vision of a state-of-the-art hospital facility designed with the children in mind. It was to be bright and cheerful. He wanted it to be a place that children would enjoy visiting — a place that didn’t look or smell like a hospital.

Currently, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children has 25 full-time physicians on staff. None of the physicians have an outside practice and all are dedicated solely to the patients at the Scottish Rite Hospital. The hospital is a teaching facility as well. Health professionals from all over the world come to observe and work with the staff at Scottish Rite. The total hospital staff numbers 600 and they have approximately 800 volunteers on their active roll.

Since the hospital opened its doors in 1921, doctors have treated more than 130,000 children. Today the hospital has about 13,000 active patients who come from all over Texas to be treated. They've seen at least one patient from every Texas county, but the majority come from a 150-mile radius of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. The hospital serves primarily Texas residents, but on occasion, a special "teaching" case warrants admission of a non-resident. All prospective patients must be referred by a physician.

Family income is never a determinant for admission to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital. The only reason a patient might not be eligible is if a child has a condition that is not treated at the hospital. In that case, the hospital staff works with the family to find the best place for that child to receive help.

About 90 percent of the patients come with orthopedic conditions and certain related neurological disorders. The remaining 10 percent have learning disabilities. The hospital is primarily an out-patient facility, but they have an active in-patient unit as well. An average in-patient stay is now only about four days. Some children become patients as infants and remain until the age of 18. Every case is unique.

There are specialized departments within the hospital, child life for example, that work with the patient and family to help them adjust to the hospital environment and feel more comfortable about the various procedures. There is also a family resource center where the family, with the help of hospital staff, can conduct their own extensive research into their child’s disability and also identify places in their own communities that they can turn to for help.

"It’s another extension of treating the whole family," Hitt says.

There is a fitness park for the patients on the hospital campus. Here, the hospital's recreational therapists can plan different activities for the patients.

For the most part, everything that is needed to care for patients is handled in-house. For example, they have a prosthetics and orthotics lab where they do prototyping or manufacturing of basically anything the surgeons or prosthetics department needs in the way of braces or artificial limbs for patients.

One of the major orthopedic diagnoses treated at the hospital is scoliosis. More than a decade ago, Scottish Rite physicians along with staff researchers developed a spinal implant system for correcting scoliosis and spinal deformities. That technology has revolutionized the way surgery is performed to correct spinal deformities, and today it is one of the most widely used systems in the world. Thanks to this revolutionary procedure, a child can have spinal surgery and be back home in less than two weeks.

The hospital is also the largest single site interdisciplinary center in the U.S. for the treatment of spina bifida. Scottish Rite also treats cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and clubfoot, and they have extensive experience with a patented device that allows bones to be lengthened and strengthened.

These modern-day inventions in many ways allow children to participate in everyday activities. One of the hospital’s patients with a prosthetic leg is now a professional skateboarder who has his own line of skateboards. Another patient who was born without any upper or lower extremities wanted to play golf. The team at Scottish Rite made it possible. Because of this work and efforts to make golf accessible to children with challenges, the hospital received a $150,000 grant from the United States Golf Association Foundation to expand the hospital’s Junior Golf Program and train golf professionals to work with children with special needs.

Though the hospital is probably best known for its orthopedic success, it has also made great strides in the field of children’s learning disabilities. In 1965, a neurologist who had an interest in children with learning disabilities — primarily dyslexia —joined the hospital staff. In turn, a specialized testing program was developed by Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children to screen for this disability.

In 1985, when the State of Texas passed a law which mandated that every school district have a program for children with learning disabilities, Scottish Rite put their own program on video and made it available to every school district in the state. The hospital also annually certifies 10 to 15 public school teachers to be dyslexia-trained therapists. It is a two-year program. Today, they offer in-house classes for children with dyslexia, and students can access the same program in their own school districts.

All of these success stories have been made possible by private donations.

"We are not a United Way agency," Hitt says. We don’t receive any state or federal funding. It's strictly voluntary gifts that support our mission."

The Rocker b wasn’t the first property donated to the hospital, but it is the largest and the most valuable. According to Gary Nease, the hospital's director of real estate, it is generous gifts of financial resources and property that today make many things possible at the hospital.

"We've been blessed with a lot of resources on the ranch," Nease says.

The Rocker b has always been a working ranch, and the hospital has continued that tradition. The hospital's Rocker b Ranch board is made up of hospital trustees who make the decisions for the ranch, but the day-to-day management is left up to their ranch managers.

As with any ranching operation, Mother Nature often helps make those decisions. Because of a severe and ongoing drouth in West Texas, changes have had to be made on the ranch. The hospital has significantly reduced its livestock numbers.

"Currently, the ranch is stocked at about 20 percent of their normal carrying capacity," Nease says. To compensate, greater emphasis has been placed on wildlife resources.

"The board is committed to continuing to run the Rocker b just as they’ve always done since they received it. It has never been the intention of the hospital to get out of the livestock business," Nease explains. "Livestock will always be a big part of the ranch. We know that a cattle operation can work hand in hand with the wildlife enterprise."

As soon as the ranch gets enough rain to allow the grass to grow, Nease anticipates that they will begin rebuilding their herd. They have recently purchased 80 heifers.

The ranch had also made some progressive changes in its management team. Instead of having one manager oversee the entire ranch operation, they’re using a team approach. They now have a director of livestock and a director of wildlife.

Currently, the ranch offers guided hunts for big game (white-tailed deer and pronghorn) as well as hunting for upland game birds. White-tailed deer is their key wildlife resource. The ranch also has the last native herd of pronghorn antelope in the state and they're working closely with Texas Parks and Wildlife to manage that population and their habitat.

Currently, four families live on the ranch and each cowboy has a significant amount of responsibility over his particular section of the ranch.

"Although we don’t presently have a lot of cattle at the ranch, they have a lot of territory to cover. There are a lot of windmills and many miles of fence that have to be maintained. They stay extremely busy," Nease says.

As with other properties given to the hospital, income from ranch operations and resources has helped provide the highest quality care to children served by the hospital.

The hospital has an on-site property management department which includes staff members with real estate, oil and gas and minerals experience.

"We receive all kinds of land gifts, from farms and ranches to houses and cemetery lots. Most are in Texas, but we do receive properties located outside the state. Currently, we have properties in Arkansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma," Nease notes.

"Because we are primarily in the business of caring for children, a large majority of the properties are sold as soon as they're received," he adds.

To sustain its mission of caring for children without charge, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital takes every opportunity to share the needs of the hospital with prospective donors. Many friends of the hospital have been touched personally by the care that their family or someone they know has received at the hospital. There are many former patients, especially those treated in the 1940s and 1950s, who have made financial and/or real estate gifts to the hospital in their wills.

"Any income that we receive from the ranching operations goes directly to pay for hospital operations," Nease notes.

"Many people are under the impression that our funding comes from Masonic dues," Hitt says. "Yet, all of the contributions made to the hospital are voluntary. No one is assessed on our behalf."

Fundraising events are another way Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children generates funds on behalf of their young patients. A benefit Sporting Clay Shoot each October in San Angelo is one of the hospital’s fundraising events.

"It’s a great link between the Rocker b and our friends in West Texas to the hospital," Hitt says. This year’s benefit Sporting Clay Shoot will be Saturday, October 20, 2001, at the San Angelo Claybird Association Range in San Angelo. More information on that activity is available from Betsy Yeckel at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children at (214) 559-7684.